Glenn Beck has wasted no time joining his pal Alex Jones on the conspiracy train. How long will it take to filter into Congress?

Via RightWingWatch:

Beck then went on to send a semi-coded message to those in the upper level of the government warning that they had better come clean about this Saudi national because The Blaze has information that reveals that he "is a very bad, bad, bad man" which will be revealed on Monday.

"I don't bluff," Beck stated, "I make promises. The truth matters. I've had enough of what you've done to our country. I thought I had heard and seen it all. I thought I didn't trust my government. Oh no, no, no. There is no depth that these people will not stoop to. They have until Monday and then The Blaze will expose it."

This conspiracy theory comes out of the rumors emerging about the Saudi national who was fingered by the media on Monday after the bombings and later found not to be a suspect. Beck and his pals have decided there's a coverup because he has some kind of relationship to the Benghazi tragedy in September.

This is little more than an attempt to use the current tragedy to flog the past because it works politically for the extreme right wing. They can link up scary brown people with Russians! Because...scary.

It's cynical, it's ugly and it's vintage Glenn Beck.

There's a lot of opposition to the Common Core standards on both sides of the aisle. Americans for Prosperity is ramping up a big campaign against them now, and on the left, there's a lot of discomfort over the one-size-fits-all cookie cutter approach to educating our kids. But Beck? He goes over a weird edge in this rant.

RightWingWatch:

On his radio program today, Glenn Beck continued his truly unhinged crusade against Common Core by pointing out that Exxonmobil supports it while alleging that the company is only doing so because someone in the government called in a favor and maybe even secretly promised them drilling rights for doing so.

The all-encompassing reach of Common Core has led Beck to decide that he will not allow his children to ever attend college because he will not allow them to be indoctrinated and become part of "the system that is coming." Beck then became very serious and cautious, telling his audience to "just be aware that there are many ways to mark people" and warning them to "be very careful"

Oh, my. I also hate that ExxonMobil and the billionaires like Gates paid for the development of Common Core standards, but that's because I think they're trying to do to education what they did for computers -- commoditize and profitize it.

But the "mark of the beast"? That's what Beck is referring to in that last paragraph. Has Glenn Beck gone back to drugs?

Now that Glenn Beck is perched over at The Blaze, we don't get to see much of his circus clown routine that he made famous on FOX.

Right Wing Watch:

It doesn't even seem possible, but every day Glenn Beck manages to go further and further off the deep end and there appears to be no end in sight. For example, last night he grew increasingly overwhelmed by his fear that "collectivism" is taking over this nation; so much so that he eventually ended up on his knees on the floor of his studio, providing imaginary medical aid with an American flag blanket to a mortally wounded Lady Liberty in a desperate attempt to save America ... before begging his viewers to remove their children from public schools because "they're indoctrination camps."

Glenn Beck's overwrought routine involved making believe the body of Lady Liberty is gurgling up blood. He then kneels on the floor, trying to stop the bleeding with the American flag. He tells us that in the movies when you see a body gurgling blood (he makes gurgling sounds), you know it's too late for them and they die.

Then he grows very calm and quiet as he tells his audience that he "doesn't know what to do" about the schools...

After you watch this clip , I'll bet you'll agree that the crazy only has grown stronger in his soul. He now believes he's under some spiritual attack, too. (Guess it hasn't occurred to him the source of his worry is within.)

That somehow morphed into a revelation by Beck that he and his inner circle have recently come under spiritual and physical attack by the forces of darkness, which made him realize that "we're not fighting man" and "that something is on the horizon."

"We are headed for a great depression," he went on to declare, "and we are headed for civil unrest, and we are headed for things that you never thought was possible in your country."

PT Barnum is credited with saying: "There's a sucker born every day" and history has proven him right. Robert Welch created the John Birch society by conning as many wingnut rubes as he could into forming an anti-government and anti-Communist advocacy group. It became very powerful in the early sixties by promoting crazed Communist conspiracy theories that reached as far up as the White House. Even William F Buckley railed against them as vociferously as he could so that the Republican party wouldn't be besmirched by their apparent lunacy.

The society had been founded in 1958 by an earnest and capable entrepreneur named Robert Welch, a candy man, who brought together little clusters of American conservatives, most of them businessmen. He demanded two undistracted days in exchange for his willingness to give his seminar on the Communist menace to the United States, which he believed was more thoroughgoing and far-reaching than anyone else in
America could have conceived.

His influence was near-hypnotic, and his ideas wild. He said Dwight D. Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy,” and that the government of the United States was “under operational control of the Communist party.” It was, he said in the summer of 1961, “50-70 percent” Communist-controlled...read on

Conspiracy nuts have been on the fringes of political discussion for a long time, but with the rise of Fox News, the Tea party and the Internet, Glenn Beck has snatched the crown from Welch and proudly wears it for all to see. In the process, he's making millions of dollars off the dupes and weak-minded followers of extreme right-wing orthodoxy.

Here's Beck's latest nonsensical conspiracy rant about the possible Islamic brainwashing of John Brennan:

Perhaps the most amazingly hypocritical thing about Glenn Beck is that his entire Blaze network serves as nothing but a repository for conspiracy theories, wild speculation, and outright lies while Beck holds himself up as a champion of "the truth."

Case in point. On his program last night, Beck took up the allegation that John Brennan, President Obama's nominee to head the CIA, may have secretly converted to Islam as part of a counterintelligence operation run against him by the Saudi government.

Despite the fact that this claim originated from one laughably unreliable source, Beck found it to be entirely "plausible," saying that "if somebody makes a charge like that, shouldn't we at least explore it" before saying that the media wouldn't even bother to investigate because "it seems like we can't even ask reasonable questions any more"

Yes, crazy indeed, but we've seen his Muslim hysteria many times before.

Beck: I believe that I can make a case in the end that there are three powers that you will see really emerge. One, a Muslim caliphate that controls the Mideast and parts of Europe. Two, China, that will control Asia, the southern half of Africa, part of the Middle East, Australia, maybe New Zealand, and God only knows what else. And Russia, which will control all of the old former Soviet Union bloc, plus maybe the Netherlands. I'm not really sure. But their strong arm is coming. That leaves us and South America. What happens to us?

Not much daylight between Glenn Beck and Robert Welch!

The idea that anyone who hates liberals and makes a lamebrain assertion about anyone at all immediately becomes plausible and should be investigated. Can you imagine if he did acquire a network?

Glenn Beck wants to be the libertarian Walt Disney. And he has decided to build himself some kind of libertarian-utopia theme park called Independence, USA where, for a price, you can live out Beck’s dream of America The Way It Should Be: Grow your own food, your own energy and your own media. Plus, there’s a giant phallic symbol of a structure that Beck says represents “man reaching up to find God’s knowledge.”

In a voice full of hushed awe at his own amazing vision, Beck described his Fantasy Land that, he hopes, will exemplify the “rebirth of our nation through our own principles.”

Here are a few snippets:

You want an Ann Taylor, go some place else… This is where people work and create their own businesses, quintessentially American businesses.

…We have to teach how we grow food… Everything in this Independence Park… we produce more than we consume.

…I don’t know about you but my favorite vacations are not in fancy resorts. My favorite vacations are going to the mountains and just shutting off all the electronic devices – no TV, nothing – and watching the kids, after about two days, their imaginations start running wild and they stop saying, ‘What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? There’s nothing to do here.’ And all of a sudden, everybody’s making magic castles or for warriors out of some rocks or watching the kids be superheroes. …We have to have simpler times.

But while Beck presented this as some kind of incubator of innovation, it’s pretty clear he’s really looking to inculcate his own Beckian vision:

Before you send your kids to college… you spend a week with us… We will show them the truth. We will tell them what they’re gonna try to do and we will deprogram them every summer if you care.

But really, Beck believes schools are “a thing of the past” and is working with some “very, very wise people” on “how it can be done.”

Beckland Independence also includes what he describes as “my baby” which is “my national archives.” There, he says, “We will keep the things and the ideas and the books and the papers that tell the truth.”

You mean like David Barton's?

Beck also plans to produce some of his shows in Independence and make movies full of “common decency,” as if Beck has ever showed any. There’s also what he described as a “canyon theater” that can become Fort McHenry (among other things) if you “ever want to tell the story of 1812.”

What Beck didn’t say is how much he plans to soak charge his truthseekers for all this wisdom and rebirth. As Sharmin Kent wrote on Think Progress:

An environment built primarily on capitalism—and Beck’s brand of news and entertainment—will have to turn a profit. And from the proposed theme park to the ranch where visitors can learn to “work the land,” Independence, USA is a vehicle for Glenn Beck to cultivate, build and benefit from his audience’s attention as well as their wallets. At its core, the concept of Independence—like the fantasy playland Walt Disney created nearly 60 years ago—sells nothing more than the make-believe world Beck has spent years building on Fox News, and later with his own media company.

But there’s one big difference between Disney’s make-believe world and Beck’s: Disney’s is full of fun and enchantment for everyone. In Independence, the magic is all about Beck.

The report confirms what we've said here all along: FreedomWorks is less grass roots and more astroturf than anything else, with the majority of its funding coming from corporate donors, foundations, and big money types. You may recall that Richard Stephenson of Cancer Centers of America is the sugar daddy who bought Dick Armey's $8 million retirement. There's more.

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Yesterday, apparently without a hint of irony, Joe Scarborough said on the air that right-wing media "bullies" were hurting the GOP, and added that Republicans should "punch them in the face" (after 15:00). Hugh Hewitt, one of wingnut radio's hackier propagandists, had Scarborough on his show to explain himself, and this exchange ensued.

HH: Joe, who do you listen to on talk radio, because I don’t even know if you listen anymore, because you’ve got, it must be a six hour production schedule.

JS: Yeah, I mean, I go around the clock. I think like everybody else, I listen to Rush whenever I get a chance. I listen to you when I get a chance. I love Bennett. He’s in the morning, but sometimes I get snippets of Bennett. I’m a big Michael Medved fan, and have been for ages. But I will tell you, ironically enough, ideologically, even though he drives me crazy and I criticize him all the time because of the crazy, nutty things he says, I think ideologically, and please don’t tell anybody, I may be closest to Glenn Beck. I’m sort of, I’ve got a libertarian bent. I’m a 10th Amendment guy, and…

Uh, Joe? It's never a good sign when you see ideological kinship with a crazy person.

Scene from Swingers (1996) (Warning: Language NSFW)

I love the movie Swingers, but boy, I can't really say that Vince Vaughn is money now:

Glenn Beck on Wednesday announced that he is teaming up with actor Vince Vaughn to produce a new reality show set to debut next year on Beck's TheBlaze TV.

“Pursuit of Truth” will pit 20 documentary filmmakers in a competition for financing and distribution for their film. Beck’s TheBlaze TV, Vaughn and Peter Billingsley’s Wild West Productions and Gary Auerbach’s Go Go Luckey Entertainment are behind the nine episode series, which will launch on TheBlaze TV in spring 2013.

Vaughn has been open about his conservative beliefs for many years and was a vocal Ron Paul supporter during the primary. I don't care about that very much other than it points to the lie of "liberal Hollywood" as much as the "liberal media."

But could there be anything more ironic and deserving of scorn than putting Glenn Beck and "The Pursuit of Truth" in the same sentence?

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Peggy Noonan to Stuart Varney on November 6th, before the polls closed: "I'm seeing Romney rising here."

Apparently Peggy was smoking some really good something before she had this interview with Stuart Varney on Fox Business yesterday. She waxed poetic about how Romney was "stealing in like a thief with really good tools", spinning Romney rallies as huge overwhelming successes and Obama rallies as unfilled stadiums.

And oh, that Nate Silver! Noonan's Sunday Wall Street Journal column was rife with denial. This particular section made me double over with laughter, actually:

Obama and the storm, it was like a wave that lifted him and then moved on, leaving him where he’d been. Parts of Jersey and New York are a cold Katrina. The exact dimensions of the disaster will become clearer when the election is over. One word: infrastructure.

Yes, that would be the infrastructure the president asked Congress to repair in 2011 when he sent the framework for the American Jobs Act to Congress. You remember President Obama's speech in front of the bridge between Ohio and Kentucky that desperately needs repair? The roads, the bridges, the infrastructure that the president practically begged Congress to tackle before something catastrophic happened? That infrastructure.

Instead we got 30 bogus 'jobs bills' and Congressional obstruction on anything to do with infrastructure.

Yet here comes Peggy Noonan, cheering the infrastructure like a holy God coming down from the heavens to spark...enthusiasm. For Romney. Yes, Peggy Noonan and her bobblehead Stuart Varney are nodding away like she's a sage with prophetic God-given powers to Know What This Country Needs.

Hilarious and not hilarious.

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Sean Hannity, always the shrinking violet concern troll, is never the birther, of course. He just allows idiots with idiot theories to be softball interviewed on his show to sound the dog whistles, which will then be echoed by the likes of Breitbart, Glenn Beck, and the Fox morning crew.

But this one is particularly stupid. Even the dumbest Fox viewer ought to be scratching their head over this one. Wayne Allyn Root has been pimping his story for a very long time on sites like World Net Daily and more recently, Glenn Beck's The Blaze. It goes like this: Root went to Columbia at the same time that Barack Obama went to Columbia but Root has no recollection of Obama, therefore, Barack Obama must have been a foreign exchange student.

Root's story is so weak even Reason.com is embarrassed by it (and him):

Former Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate and current Libertarian National Campaign Committee Chair Wayne Allyn Root is why libertarians can't have nice things. Case in point: Root's latest column at Glenn Beck's The Blaze.

Let me sum it up for you: Mitt Romney should offer to release more tax returns only if Obama will release his college transcripts. This will take the pressure off Romney, and put the scrutiny back on Obama, except that Obama will never release his transcripts because he pretended to be from another country to get loans and then seldom went to classes at Columbia and got poor grades. Wayne Allyn Root knows all this because he also graduated from Columbia in 1983 and doesn't remember seeing any black people "Barry Soetoro."

This awful, weird, conspiratorial column, just linked by Matt Drudge, will probably be the most widely read thing Root has ever written. Its existence is a tragedy for Libertarians and libertarians.

And here is why we should believe Root, according to Root:

I am President Obama’s classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I am also one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators. Accurate enough that I was awarded my own star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. And I smell something rotten in Denmark. Obama has a big skeleton in his closet. It’s his college records. Call it “gut instinct” but my gut is almost always right. Obama has a secret hidden at Columbia- and it’s a bad one that threatens to bring down his presidency. Gut instinct is how I’ve made my living for 29 years since graduating Columbia.

In other words, believe me because my gut tells me something's rotten in Denmark. Never mind David Maraniss' thoroughly researched biography which includes many interviews with classmates at Columbia, not to mention the old girlfriends, the letters, and the soul-searching.

These are not made-up things. Root's "hunch" is a made-up thing, meant to once again suggest that Barack Obama is not like us, that he's not really American, that he is an other. That's bad enough, but Hannity enabling him is just desperate posturing in order to avoid the real issue on the table: What is Mitt Romney hiding in his tax returns?

They will keep deflecting and obfuscating, and then release the 2011 return on October 15th when it is filed, but we will never, ever see Mitt Romney's tax returns. And Sean Hannity will continue to run interference for Mittens with bullsh*t interviews like this one.

Are Fox viewers really this stupid? I guess they are, since all the wingers on Twitter are pinging me with their nonsense about Obama's college transcripts. Because, well, Wayne Allyn Root has a hunch.

Last I knew, the Presidency wasn't a Vegas betting table, no matter what Shelly Adelson would like us to think.